


Once upon a Solstice

by DarknessAroundUs



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, But only in passing, Christmas, F/M, Otherwise there is fluff and world building, Secret Santa, The Gangs All Here, Werewolf Jughead Jones, Winter Solstice, Witch Betty Cooper, there is a mention of past charachter death, un-beta read
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:41:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28327728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarknessAroundUs/pseuds/DarknessAroundUs
Summary: A witch, a werewolf, and a winter wonderland.
Relationships: Archie Andrews/Veronica Lodge, Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Comments: 38
Kudos: 63
Collections: 8th Bughead Fanfiction Awards - Nominees, Bughead Secret Santa





	Once upon a Solstice

**Author's Note:**

> My Secret Santa 50shadesofbughead asked - 
> 
> “I was thinking along the lines mystery/fantasy themes like a living snowman, or a Christmas magic show or just a simple fluff like mr and mrs clause or matching sweaters.” 
> 
> \- I hope this meets your expectations, although I must say that there’s not much actual Christmas in it, there is at least one of the things you mentioned above. - Also I am unable to send anonymous asks to anyone on Tumblr, so I’m sorry about that, I wanted to ask more questions but couldn’t
> 
> I wish you the best Christmas and the happiest of New Years.

Betty moves every two years. She’s not sure if it’s out of habit, or because she’s in actual danger but each time she moves she changes her name. Betty’s been Sabrina Matthews, Lisa Ladd, Jennifer Watts, and once she even allowed herself the more unusual name Darwin Lewis. When she moves to Riverdale in a rare moment of weakness, she chooses the name Elizabeth Thomas. Different only in the last name.

She purchases a small house on the outskirts of town. It’s nestled into a grove of trees. Mountain ash and yew are already growing on the property. There’s a small greenhouse out back, a perfect spot for her to grow her herbs. She’ll have to wait till the spring though. It’s too late in the season for anything to start growing, even with a little boost. 

The house itself is nothing exceptional, it’s dated and tiny. With tacky bathroom mirrors, and cheap windows. 

By the time she’s hung her curtains and unpacked her wall of books, it is beginning to look like home, or at least more like home than the trailer in Duluth. 

She finds a job as a waitress at Pop’s. She needs some sort of cover, plus it always helps to get to know the locals. It’s a good thing she doesn’t actually rely on the income to pay her bills. Electricity is about all it would cover. 

Betty meets everyone in town at work. She gets to know the mayor with his red hair and gorgeous wife, because they stop in every Friday for shakes. All of the 5th grade teachers at the elementary school share Saturday brunch. The football game stops by after every game, and the drama club lingers post rehearsal.

There are regulars for every day of the week but there’s only one regular who visits every day. His name is Jughead. Betty’s not sure if he owns the local newspaper or just works for it, but he’s in Pop’s every evening from 9 PM till the early hours of the morning, chugging coffee and fiddling with his pen in a way that implies he prefers that it would be a cigarette. 

Jughead has friends come in sometimes and visit for an hour or two, but mostly it’s just him at a booth near the window, awaiting a coffee top up. 

Betty and Jughead exchange names three shifts in, but outside of that they don’t talk much. Jughead never orders anything officially. Pop just starts sending food out when he arrives, and stops when he leaves. Jughead always leaves crumpled bills behind. Sometimes it’s not enough, sometimes it’s too much. 

It’s a weird system, but Betty doesn’t look at it too closely. She likes giving people their space, partially in the hope that they’ll return the favor. 

It wouldn’t do to have anyone poke into her life too much. Pop seems happy to skim the surface of what’s going on. They talk about money, food, the 70’s music he pays on endless loops.

When Betty’s not at work she spends her time gathering plants in the woods, and brewing potions in the instapot in the basement, and reading. 

The potions she sells over her website, which is called Tea & Things, even though she’s never sold tea, and can’t really taste the difference between Tetley and loose leaf. 

She’s been running it Tea & Things for half a decade now. Other supernaturals know to trust her, even if they don’t know her name. Online she goes by the handle TiredHerbalist and no one has questioned that.

On Black Friday she buys two more instapots to help her through the inevitable holiday rush. They’re so much better than cauldrons, a fact that even Supernatural detectives know now, unfortunately. 

The Target is packed with more people than Betty cares to be around, but still she makes it through the store, and finds a line to stand in. 

The person in front of her in line is leaning on the handles of their red shopping cart and talking into their phone. Betty’s surprised when the person turns around and reveals himself to be Jughead. 

She’s never seen him outside of the diner before. He looks more alert here, his lips quirking up into a brief smile.

“I’ve got to go,” Jughead says into the phone, hanging up abruptly. Evidently he recognizes her also. 

“Hi.” She says, as soon as he’s hung up the phone. 

“What are you doing here?” He asks, his tone sharper than she expects.

“Shopping,” she says, waving a hand over the contents of her cart. It isn’t only Instapots, that in and of itself would be suspicious. There aren’t many Supernatural Detectives out in the world, but just in case she likes to cover her tracks a little. Now that she thinks about it buying two instapots at once seems a little too brazen.

“Do you cook a lot?” Jughead asks, raising a skeptical eyebrow. Of course he would notice the Instapots first, not the R2D2 sleep shirt or the Grinch socks. 

“One’s for my sister.” Betty says reluctantly. She hates telling a lie she’s going to have to keep track of later. Her sister was killed a decade ago now, during the 2020 witch trials. 

“Ok,” Jughead shrugs, and Betty wishes she could see into his cart better so she could tease him. 

They stand in companionable silence through the rest of the line. 

The next time Betty’s on night shift she’s even more vigilant with Jughead’s coffee refills, and he asks her if she’s made any cheesecake. 

“Why?” She responds, genuinely confused. It’s not like he caught her with a cheesecake recipe book in the Target.

“Isn’t that what people use Instapots for?”

Betty laughs, she can’t imagine that, but later she goes home and googles Instapot cheesecake recipe. She receives 36,600,000 results in 1.08 seconds. 

She’s only ever used hers for potions and stew, although not at the same time. 

The next week Betty tries a cheesecake out of curiosity’s sake. It turns out better than she would have imagined. 

She cuts a large slice and brings it into Jughead at the dinner. She gives it to him in a gift bag so as not to irritate Pop’s.

Jughead doesn’t seem to care about that. He takes the cheesecake out of it’s saran wrap and eats it on what was his burger’s plate.

“Maybe I need to buy an instapot.” he tells Betty when she pours some coffee for him. 

After that he starts leaving books behind in the booth when he leaves. He asks her if she likes them but he never asks for them back. 

They have a long discussion of Medicine Walk that has the football team rolling their eyes and a very active debate about On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous that even tests Pop’s patience.

It’s been a long time since Betty’s allowed herself to have a friend, and maybe that’s why it takes her so long to figure out that Jughead’s hers. 

They just spend time together at work, by mid December she’s starting to long for something more.

It’s near the end of a late night shift when Jughead asks what she’s doing for the holidays.

Betty thinks of the winter solstices of her youth, bonfires and kinship, her mother and aunts telling stories, ale shared with all but the youngest. It’s been years since she’d celebrated them with anything but a fire in her fireplace, but it was the reason she always got a house with a fireplace, easy to celebrate discreetly. 

Instead of saying any of that Betty shrugs her shoulders, and then asks “You?”

“I’ll meet up with friends, have some beer, roast some marshmallows.”

With the mention of marshmallows she wonders if they are in fact talking about the same holiday and not Christmas or Hanukkah. It’s not like one roasted marshmallows on a menorah.

“What about your sister?” Betty asks. Jughead’s always talking about the mysterious Jellybean. She’s never dropped by though, Betty has come to know Pea, Toni, and Fangs all fairly well by now. Jellybean is actually the reason Jughead knew about instapot cheesecake. 

“She lives in Oz.” Jughead says quietly. The sentence is barely louder than a whisper and yet it still sends a shiver down Betty’s spine. She glances around as if anyone in the empty dinner could hear. She’s not worried about Pop. She’s caught his eyes flare strange colors enough to know that he’s no more mundane than she is. 

Betty’s never suspected the same about Jughead, though, so the name Oz catches her off guard.

After Polly’s death, Betty and her mother had fled to Oz. It was after all the proverbial promised land, the last city in America where magic was practiced openly. The only sanctuary city that survived the purge. 

Alice had loved it there, she’d declared anyone that didn’t have magic run through their blood not worthwhile. 

But there were too many practices in Oz that set Betty’s teeth on edge. She loathed the fact that anyone without magic in their blood was tossed out, even if they were only a baby. She disliked the cliquishness of the residents. The idea that witches should preferably mate with witches, and weres with weres and so on was not appealing to her.

Sure it was safe for her, but that safety felt like it had too high a cost. 

She slips into the booth across from Jughead. He doesn’t look surprised by the move. 

“I used to live there,” Betty says. 

“I’m not surprised. I saw you walking home without gloves yesterday.” Jughead says. 

“It wasn’t that cold.”

It had actually been well below freezing. The wind wiping past felt like a knife. She’d only used the hand warming spell out of desperation. She tries to only use magic within the four walls of her house, and the woods that have her back. 

Still it’s a simple spell. Nothing obvious about it as far as she can see. Betty should be terrified that he’s bringing it up, but she isn’t. Her wards all feel steady. Her body as peaceful as it was a minute ago. 

Jughead rolls his eyes “There was a glow, slight but visible if you have exceptional eye sight.”

“Oh, so you’re a Were then?”

Instead of answering with words, Jughead’s nails extended just a few inches for a second, and then vanished. 

“Wolf.” Jughead clarifies with fangs out and sharp. 

“You already know what I am,” Betty says. 

“I’ve suspected since The Target.”

Betty feels appalled she was spotted so easily and didn’t realize. Did other people know?

“I’m a reporter so that helps. Plus over half the town is magic.” Jughead says calmly. “It’s not just Pop and my friends. We draw people with magic here like a flame. No one knows why.”

Betty’s already pieced together that his friends are his pack. Still the fact that magic is so common here catches her by surprise.

“Is the mayor magic?” She asks.

“No. Archie’s as normal as it gets. But his wife Veronica is a vampire.”

Vampires are rare. Betty knew some in Oz but she’s never seen them out and about in the United States. 

Betty nods “So the holiday you were talking about was the Solstice, actually.”

“Yes,” Jughead grins. “My favorite. Do you want to celebrate with us?”

“Is it safe?” Betty asks. Just because half the town is magic doesn’t mean that safety is guaranteed. 

Practicing magic was illegal under the constitution and many people took that very seriously. 

“It always has been.” 

That’s not a promise but it’s close enough to one for Betty at the moment. A week later she’s made her mother’s famous chocolate chip cookies and is heading into the heart of Fox Forest to the tallest tree. Jughead says that’s where they spend every solstice.

She can hear the noise before she can smell and see the fire. The howls of wolves are distinctive, the laughter that echoes around the howls could belong to anyone, but as she draws closer she sees that it’s Veronica and Archie laughing. 

It’s not a large gathering. Jughead’s pack are the only other people there. It must have been Jughead himself who was howling, his face and body are in beta form. He looks different with fangs, with the wrinkles that appear out of nowhere. 

He spots her and his fangs recede becoming the teeth they always were. His skin flattening back into youthfulness. 

“It’s a good howl,” Betty says, unsure if she’s joking. 

“Can you do better?” Sweet Pea calls from across the fire.

Betty draws on the dark around her, on the sacredness of the day. 

The howl is so loud it feels like it rolls over the forest like something physical rather than just sound. Jughead’s hair moves in response to it.

She didn’t intend to howl that loudly, but it’s clear from the way everyone is staring at her, that she’s made an impression. 

“I’m not looking forward to explaining that to the citizens of Riverdale,” Archie says with a wink. 

It’s a good night all around. There’s lots of food and alcohol. The wolves can’t get tipsy but everyone else is.

Before this evening Betty didn’t really know Toni, Sweet Pea and Fangs, as anything more than their names and faces, now she’s heard the story of Fangs first solstice, and all about Toni’s dark room incident earlier this week. 

It’s much harder to get a feel for Sweet Pea though, he’s got good one liners, but refers to her only as witch. She returns the favor by calling him were. 

There was animosity between their groups once. She’d heard the stories of the first war, the one where those that had magic fought for authority to govern the others. Witches and Mages and Sparks, against Shifters and vampires of all types, those that could wield magic versus those that held it innately in themselves. It was those that didn’t practice magic that won of course. Their sheer numbers handing them an unfair victory. 

She wondered if it was an actual issue for Sweet Pea, or if he was simply slow to warm up. 

The next day over pancakes at the dinner, she gets her answer, when he calls her Betty and leaves an enormous tip. 

Jughead starts dropping by her house after that. He always brings coffee and pretends to be in the neighborhood. 

Sometimes they talk around the fire in the living room, sometimes they go for walks in the woods. 

Betty wants to kiss him. She knows he wants to kiss her. She can feel it in the air, But neither of them makes a move. 

On Christmas Eve, Betty wakes to snow falling from the sky and thick on the ground. It feels like a blessing. 

She’s eating her oatmeal by the fire when there’s a knock on the door. Jughead’s standing there. Hat dusted white, cheeks bright pink.

“Come in,” She says.

“Come out,” He counters, lips gleaming.

She bundles up quickly, only taking care to tie her boots. A blue hat is shoved on her head, haphazardly. 

They head deep into the woods together, everything looks new and different under the snow, but somehow they find their way to the clearing they spent solstice in. The fire pit was invisible under snow drifts. 

Betty’s body feels alight with joy, full of possibilities. All that magical energy has to go somewhere, and she finds it grabbing at a few flakes at first, then gathering more and more, till they are rolling in a ball together, circling the clearing faster and faster, growing bigger each time.

Jughead whistles appreciatively and Betty gets a second snowball going, it circles in the opposite direction. 

All her concentration is caught up in the magic gathering of the snow, so that when Jughead kisses her on the mouth, their lips equally cold, equally wet, she gasps with surprise. 

He pulls back, snowflakes catching on his eyelashes. Then she presses her mouth into his with intention this time, and he presses back. Warmth builds between them, and his tongue slips into her mouth and then out again.

They pull apart slowly and Betty’s astonished to find that the smaller snowball now sits atop the larger one, a snowman in progress. It’s what she’d intended to make, before the kiss had changed everything. 

“Wow” Jughead says, and she hopes he’s talking about the kiss and not the snowman. He confirms as much when he kisses her again, deep and sweet.


End file.
